Fresh off of wrapping Copper in Toronto, Essandoh recently chatted with CityBeat
about playing his groundbreaking character on the show, his brush with
an Internet death rumor and some of his own television obsessions.

It’s September 2011. Occupy Wall Street
is in its early stages, the country mourns the 10-year anniversary of
9/11, the 2012 election race is in full swing — a tumultuous and
exciting time to re-enter The Newsroom(10 p.m. Sundays, HBO).

We’ve survived The Ice Truck Killer, The
Skinner, Trinity, The Doomsday Killer and other non-nicknamed bad guys,
and in this final season of Dexter (9 p.m. Sundays,
Showtime) our leading man must make some serious decisions about his
“dark passenger.”

Now in its sixth season, Southern-fried vampire drama True Blood (9
p.m. Sundays, HBO) has truly “turned.” What started as a somewhat
realistic take on the genre, suspenseful and sexy with a wink of camp,
is now a full-blown supernatural soap opera.

The Arrested Development story is a TV nerd’s dream come true. A smart, quirky, new kind of comedy struggles to attract an audience. Despite being critically acclaimed, the series fails to draw in enough viewers (and playfully mocks its own demise) and gets canned after the third season. Enter the Netflix era.

Tom+Chee, the local gourmet grilled cheese and tomato soup restaurant, will be featured on this week’s episode of Shark Tank. Founders Trew Quackenbush and Corey Ward
will pitch their business proposition to a panel of
entrepreneur-investors (“The Sharks”) in hope of striking a deal and
expanding the franchise.

I was tricked into watching Small Town Security
(10 p.m. Thursdays, AMC) during its premiere last summer. The reality
workplace comedy following a Georgia private security company
immediately followed each episode of the first half of Breaking Bad’s
final season.

America’s Best Bites (4:30 p.m. Saturday, The Cooking Channel), hosted by Natalie Forte, is in
its first season, and Abigail Street’s Chef Dan Wright and his wife Lana
will be featured on the third episode.

It’s often said that the vice president
of the United States is “one heartbeat away” from the role of commander
in chief. But if Veep (10 p.m., Sundays, HBO) is any indication, sometimes second-in-command is actually much further down the totem pole.

Nathan Fielder goes beyond poking fun at these “expert takeover” series to reveal these little cultural phenomena, like what it takes to become a viral sensation or what some people are willing to do in order to be on television.